Tribute

As I have previously suggested, the Lord’s supper has much in connection to the tribute, or grain, offering. The priests in Israel offered bread and wine to God every morning and evening (Num. 28:1-9), and additional bread and wine every Sabbath (Num. 28:10). The priests ate portions of the bread (Lev. 2) but had no portion of the wine, which was poured out entirely (Lev. 10:9). And interestingly, the tribute offering, together with the frankincense that accompanied it, is the only offering described as a memorial. Likewise, Jesus calls the Lord’s supper a memorial (1 Cor. 11, often confusingly translated “remembrance”).

Clearly Jesus means us to draw connections between his supper and the daily offering of bread and wine. This is one of the many ways in which the worship of the church has become a sort of transfiguration of temple worship; for example, the church is the temple (1 Cor. 3), we offer a sacrifice of praise (Heb. 13), and we draw near in worship (Heb. 10), which is sacrificial language. Likewise, as a kingdom of priests, we eat bread—and now drink wine!—together with God in his house.

Thus, weekly communion: if every priest offered memorial bread and wine every day that he stood in service in God’s house, how much more should we eat memorial bread and wine every day that we stand together as the house of God?

[…] We see this further in the book of Hebrews, where the language of “sacrifice of praise to God” (Heb. 13:15) exactly parallels the language of the Septuagint, which refers to a “sacrifice of praise” (Lev. 7:12 LXX) rather than a “thanksgiving sacrifice.” Similarly, Hebrews’ use of “continually” (also Heb. 13:15) repeats the expression used by the Septuagint to refer to the daily tribute offering (Lev. 6:20), which we have also linked to the Lord’s supper. […]